Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire
  • omnibus

Camera and Pen
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
18 May 2022
🖨️ Print Article
Camera and Pen
A mural dedicated to Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in the streets of Gaza. (Photo: Mahmoud Ajjour, The Palestine Chronicle)

                                                                                              Camera and Pen  

                                                                      (for Shireen Abu Aqleh and all truth-tellers)

                                                                “I pray you’ll be our eyes/And watch us where we go/

                                                                   And help us to be wise/In times we don’t know…”  

                                                                            —David Foster; Carole Bayer Sager

I.

New world’s birthing, crowning; Laboring

frantically— Truth-tellers, whistleblowers,

journalists— its fearless

Midwifes.

Warning us: The world can’t wait… Cannot sustain

Unsustainable warfare states

Warning us: Stretch stiff, atrophying dream muscles—

Seek antidotes for lethal circuses of strongmen, fat-cats,

Warlords, war-profiteers, bloodthirsty jackals, slimy

fossil Fools…

Our precious truth-tellers, whistleblowers, journalists hurl

themselves in crosshairs of snipers’ scopes. Close

distances between brains and hearts and assassins’

silencers.

Offer up loins, livers, guts to embassy butchers. Sip tea

with a little poison so that we may know… “What’s Goin’

On?”

So that we may know…precious truth-tellers, whistleblowers,

journalists…Never know when two men on motorcycle arrive,

Making good on thousands of threats. Never know when the

elevator door opens for the last time…

Camera and pen original sin—punishable by death— 55

slaughtered south of the border…And 46 slaughtered by

apartheid state agents…And 20 by czarist

carnage…And…

Silence: the sound of gangster states. Darkness: their view.

We ‘know' what they tell us of Desert Shield. Desert

Storm; Special Military Operation; mowing the grass; Cast

Lead;Iraqi Freedom—And other Orwellian operations

Mengele medicine men secretly perform on peace-loving

peoples…

II.

Jesus may have had his eye on the sparrow; but the 20yr old’s

Eye is on the glass.

He sees the world through his scope. She’s math.Wind. A dot.

The raid her trap. He watches; waiting in sand with rifle nick

named “Gritty Golda.”

Loner. Few friends. Below average kid. 8 weeks of sniper school.

Robot programmed to hate; to kill. Several weeks more of precision

shooting. 100 meters. 200 meters. A mile or more… Attention to

detail.

Enemy—not sister; niece; aunt; daughter; Mother—appears in his cross

hairs. Feminine neckline between helmet and vest. Two second flight—

crimson aerosol— “Without warning, without remorse…” as he was

Taught. Doing his job. Following orders.…His 54th confirmed kill.

“Thank you for your service…”

© 2022. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.

Palestine
Shireen Abu Akleh

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


Related Stories

Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
Whitewashed, Bleached, and Alabastardized: How White “supremacy’s” Subjective Identification of War Criminals Reveals its Deeper Psychopathology
20 August 2025
The manufactured outrage over Vladimir Putin's presence at the Alaska summit was an attempt to reinforce a global racial order.
x
Palestine Chronicle Staff
Responding to Mohamed Salah: Who Killed the ‘Palestinian Pelé’?
20 August 2025
Al-Obeid, 41, was killed on Wednesday, August 6, 2025, in an Israeli attack on civilians waiting for humanitarian aid in the southern Gaz
Mohammed El-Kurd
Guilty by Affiliation
13 August 2025
The Israeli murder of heroic Palestinian journalist Anas Al-Sharif was bookended by accusations that he was part of Hamas.
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
INTERVIEW: Fatima Bernawi: The Tragedy of a People, 1978
13 August 2025
“The reason for these military operations was, and still is, to tell the Israeli occupation that we defy it and are willing to resist
Jon Jeter
Black People Who See Themselves in Palestinians Find that Israel Sees the Same
13 August 2025
Israel's brutal treatment of Black solidarity activists proves the truth that resistance to settler colonialism comes with a price.
Youssef Fares
Survivors of Aid Massacres: Israel Is Eroding Gaza’s Social Fabric
13 August 2025
As the world condemns indiscriminate bombing, Israel continues to commit genocide by social erosion.
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
There is no starvation
06 August 2025
Firstly, the world’s most moral snipers would never target Practice on razor wire-trapped, hungry hunters and
Khaled Barakat
Saudi Arabia and France are Leading a ‘Political Genocide’
06 August 2025
The New York Declaration doesn't merely betray Palestine.
Dr.Wilmer J. Leon, III
Palestinians are Not Starving in Gaza. They are Being Starved!
30 July 2025
The Israeli government isn’t failing to feed Palestinians in Gaza. They are deliberately starving them. Starvation is their weapon.
B’Tselem
Our Genocide
30 July 2025
B’Tselem,The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, makes clear that a genocide is taking place in Gaza.

More Stories


  • Marco Rubio in Guyana
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Marco Rubio Targets Guyana and the Caribbean Region
    04 Apr 2025
    Gerald Perreira is the chairperson of the Organization for the Victory of the People in Guyana. He joins us from Guyana to discuss U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s recent trip to Guyana,…
  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Trump Exposes the Elite Classes
    02 Apr 2025
    While Trump dedicates himself to making every conservative fantasy come true, millions wonder who will save them from the onslaught of the right wing fever dream. The answer is no one but ourselves.…
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: Armed Struggle: Natural Response to Fascism, Martin Sostre, 1975
    02 Apr 2025
    “The question now is: What are we going to do about this murderous fascism?”
  • Peter and Victoire
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    The Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza Democracy and Peace Prize, 2025
    02 Apr 2025
    This year’s Victoire Prize went to ICTR lawyers David Jacobs and Peter Erlinder and Canadian journalist Jooneed Khan.
  • Jon Jeter
    Trump’s Tariffs Won’t Reverse Globalization or Resurrect America’s Dying Industrial Base
    02 Apr 2025
    Throughout history, trade restrictions have reshaped economies for good or for ill. As Trump increases tariffs across industries, it is clear that this move will not revitalize the economy as he…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us